I have a 4 poster bed that I want to shorten the two foot posts. It's hard to tell if it is iron or steel or what because it has a faux painted finish. The other snag is I need to keep it in place because the only way to get it out of my house is to hoist it over the deck rails. There are ball caps that look like brass on each post that I would want to replace onto the shorter posts. Any ideas?
How to cut posts off an iron bed
tools
Related Solutions
You could probably rent a saw like this from your local hardware store.
They will usually have a diamond tipped masonry blade. You'll also want to make sure it's a wet saw or you keep the stones wet as you cut, as the dust from cutting concrete can make a real mess and be harmful to your health.
You may also be able to find a splitter like this.
The splitters produce far less dust and noise, and can usually be found cheaper than a saw (I found a couple on-line for a few hundred dollars). However, splitters may not produce a perfectly clean cut. Splitters also come in pneumatic and hydraulic varieties, purchasing those might be out of the budget ($1000.00 and up) but might be available for rent at a reasonable price.
For thicker pieces you might find you get better results by compressing the foam before cutting it. You could make a simple straight-line clamp out of a couple of 2x4s linked with a door hinge -- just put your foam in between, clamp the open end shut with a C-clamp, and use one edge of the wood as a guide for your cut. For your curved cuts it might make more sense to make a plywood die to match the final shape and press it down by hand or with something heavy before cutting around it.
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Best Answer
In general, if you're looking to keep things clean, a pipe cutter would be the least messy. If you want to keep tool purchases cheap, and can handle a little mess, then a hacksaw would likely work.
All that being said. If you want to put the bed knobs back on after you're done, you might find that you have to do some welding/brazing. If the bed knobs screw in, then there's likely a threaded insert inside the post. Once you shorten the post, you'll have to find a way to remove and refit the insert into the shorter post. Obviously if the knobs simply slide into the top of the post, then you won't have any trouble at all re attaching them.